Herbs have been usually used as a whole plant for medical application for so many years. Herbs are typically ingested as an infusion or tea, or are applied externally as a poultice. It had been found, however, that there is significant variance in the medical effect among individuals of herbs of the same species, when the herbs are treated by the same way.
The ingredients of an herb are typically a mixture of many chemical compounds, and some of the chemical compounds might be biologically active and have a therapeutic effect on human and animals. The ingredients of an herb may vary in their compound species and/or the relative amount thereof, depending upon the genetic information of the individuals of the herb and the natural conditions when the herb grows, such as the geographic region for cultivation, soil composition, water quality, weather conditions including temperature and humidity, sunshine intensity, and growth period.
The effect of herbs for medical application to human and animals is dependent upon the presence of several active compounds and their relative amount contained in the herbs. The higher amount of the active compounds is present in an herb individual, the higher therapeutic effect may be achieved. In the prior art, there is no scientific guideline to detect the presence of desired active ingredients in an herb and their relative amount, even when the herb had already been known to have a specific therapeutic function. The quality of an herb individual having been known to have a therapeutic effect on human and animals is conventionally judged based on just the skilled people's experience in, such as, observing the herbal body shape, color and tissue's texture, smelling its flavor and/or tasting tissue's fluid. There is no teaching in the art to ascertain, by a scientific and systematic way, the quality (i.e. the presence of desired active ingredients and/or their relative amount) of herbs having a therapeutic effect on human and animals.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,156,291 discloses a method of reproducibly extracting a pharmacologically active mixture of chemical components from a plant source, wherein there is an improved quality control of the mixtures of pharmacologically active components.
To solve this problem, based on the finding of the inventor, the present application provides an efficient, scientific and quick method for detecting and ascertaining the presence of active ingredients in the herb individuals, whereby those herb individuals having active ingredients and in turn a desired therapeutic effect could be screened.